I thought Scirra was working to improve the Ejecta plugin, but now it seems they are throwing their support behind PhoneGap with the latest Beta build. Which is better for iOS? Can anyone explain the differences between them?

IOS8 WebKit that all browsers(except when running safari) are now able to access Nitro(accelerated javascript runtime compiler) and WebGL(full GPU acceleration). This means that PhoneGap will get access to it's weakest performance areas. The JS runtime and the GPU which Phonegap could not use. However this only counts as IOS8+

IOS7 does not allow PhoneGap or other browsers including WebApps to access Nitro or WebGL. So when running a game not in Safari will suffer large performance loss. So people made Ejecta. Which has a good JS runtime and a good graphics rendering.

If you want to support IOS7 and lower. You need to sue Ejecta/CacoonJS. If you are willing to support only IOS8+ then PhoneGap is probably going to be the better choice int he long run. Also and this is my favorite news. PhoneGap allows Cordova plugins. And... drool. Someone is making a PhoneGap WebRTC plugin. Where as no one is doing that with Ejecta. So when the that plugin is done.

The great thing about PhoneGap and the Apache group that has made Cordova. Is that talented programmers can build interfaces from native to the JS level. While PhoneGap probably doesn't have a built in solution. this doesn't stop us from making or better yet finding solutions.

Thank you for the reply and the information about PhoneGap. I didn't know about the blog post. I'll read further into it.

Since 89% of iOS users (according to Apple) are using the most current version, PhoneGap might be the way to go when iOS 8 is released. Providing everyone chooses to upgrade. If I remember correctly, iOS 8 will run on an iPad2 and iPhone 4s.

Sebastion. yeah. IOS has amazing upgrade ratio compared to most other OSs.

There is a tutorial for getting low latency polyphoncs to work in C2. However if PhoneGap ends up being the main way to go. Then I wouldn't be surpised that Ashley could implemented a proper integration.

I did a performance test between iOS8's WKWebView and Ejecta. We have a pretty complex scene. I really don't think the WKWebView is going to be THAT much better. It is great for simple pages, but for games it still doesn't cut it.

With a large scene we were getting 50fps for ejecta and crawling around 10fps for WKWebView.

I don't know if someone created hooks to make phonegap + wkwebviews + canvas better, but its doubtful.

I did a performance test between iOS8's WKWebView and Ejecta. We have a pretty complex scene. I really don't think the WKWebView is going to be THAT much better. It is great for simple pages, but for games it still doesn't cut it.

With a large scene we were getting 50fps for ejecta and crawling around 10fps for WKWebView.

I don't know if someone created hooks to make phonegap + wkwebviews + canvas better, but its doubtful.

How did you managed to try this test out, and on which device?

Game design is all about decomposing the core of your game so it becomes simple instructions.